By Deborah Charles
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) announced on Wednesday the indictments of Colombian rebel leaders on charges of kidnapping and drug trafficking to finance their war on the government.
"In three separate indictments, leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish-language acronym FARC, stand charged with hostage taking and drug trafficking in order to obtain money and weapons for terrorist activities," Attorney General John Ashcroft told a news conference.
The indictments were handed up in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Two were unsealed on Wednesday.
Ashcroft said Jorge Briceno Suarez -- the top military commander of the FARC, Latin America's largest guerrilla army -- was charged in two different indictments.
In the first Briceno was added to a list of six others, including Tomas Molina Caracas, who were first charged in March with conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.
The indictment alleged that Briceno personally exercised control over major drug transactions, arbitrated a drugs-for-weapons deal, and received large sums of money in exchange for cocaine from Molina.
In the second indictment, Briceno, Molina -- the commander of the FARC's 16th Front -- and a man known only as "El Loco" (Madman) were charged with conspiring in 1997 to kidnap two Americans and kill two Colombians. If convicted they could face the death penalty.
According to the indictment, the three men are charged with kidnapping two Americans, Jerel Shaffer and Earl Goen, who were working in Venezuela. The rebels are accused of murdering two Colombians while transporting Shaffer to the jungles of Colombia where he was held at gunpoint for nine months until a $1 million ransom was paid.
A third indictment, which was also unsealed on Wednesday, charges senior FARC commander Henry Castellanos Garzon, known as "Comandante Romana," with hostage taking for the March 1998 kidnapping of four American bird-watchers. They were held for a month.
"The State Department has called the FARC the most dangerous international terrorist organization based in the Western Hemisphere, and our indictments show them as terrorists, drug traffickers, kidnappers and murderers," Ashcroft said.
The FARC, which has been fighting the government for 38 years, says it is a peasant army that wants socialist reform in a country with huge differences between rich and poor.
Briceno, Molina and Castellanos are all living and operating in Colombia. FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller said the law enforcement agency was working with Colombian authorities to find them.
"Clearly, these indictments that are referenced today reflect that both guns and drugs were used as weapons against the United States and citizens of the United States," said Drug Enforcement Administration director Asa Hutchinson.
Calling the indictments an "essential step" in assuring the survival of democracy and the rule of law in Colombia, Hutchinson said the United States was determined to arrest the men.
"It is our hope that bringing the terrorist leaders to justice will diminish violence, will bring stability and peace to Colombia, as well as supporting the rule of law and the charges that have been brought them in the United States."